


Stealing the Stars

by tirsynni



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: 4:00am ficlet, Angst, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Gen, Tarsus IV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-02
Updated: 2013-09-02
Packaged: 2017-12-25 10:07:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/951834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tirsynni/pseuds/tirsynni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Tarsus IV, everything seemed hazy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stealing the Stars

After the vivid reds and blacks of Tarsus IV, after the deafening screams and rending sobs, after the non-stop flow of adrenaline, everything seemed to drift along in a dreamy haze for Jim Kirk.

His mother whisked him away. He remembered that. He remembered her pallor and raised voice but not what she said: only that they left him alone after that. He was sure that he had been hungry but that sensation melded into the background, like the smell of smoke and cooked meat. His mother whisked him away and the chill sterility of the ship was replaced by the endless blue skies of Iowa, but Jim couldn’t remember the steps in between.

He recalled the officers discussing dead children found in the hills. Nothing seemed worth remembering after that.

Jim remembered his mother whisking him away and then his mother leaving, just like she always did. Frank was there, Frank was always there, and after Kodos Frank was laughable, pitiful, not worth rousing himself.

Jim dreamed and slept and dreamed and woke to the glowing stars on his ceiling, a holographic present from Grandpa Tiberius and an adored prize. He thought he recalled hurting his hands when he broke it. The glowing stars went away and Frank came.

Frank, who poked and prodded and smelled like sweat and alcohol. He reeked of fear, cheap and primal, and Jim remembered hating him. He bothered Jim into eating like Jim could possibly forget and stared at Jim sprawled on his bed like Kodos’s guards did and touched Jim’s thigh like Kodos had. _You don’t need to die tomorrow. You can live_.

Jim broke his wrist like he had Kodos’s, and Frank went away and his mother came back.

Drifting and fading and blurring in a sea of scent and sound, Jim watched and ignored the world go by. His mother whisked him away and then left and came back and it didn’t matter because his kids were still dead. Jim’s kids were dead and Jim was alive and when he finally woke up it was to the sharp clarity of rage and hate, blazing as red as blood even as the glow of the stars broke and died.

Jim woke into a world where his kids were dead, and his rage blazed and flared until a man in a bar opened his hand and gave him back the glowing stars.


End file.
